


Cabin Fever

by Mrs King of Hell (Slytherkins)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst with a Happy Ending, Animal Attack, Animal Death, Chronic Pain, Depression, Disability, F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:42:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22162237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slytherkins/pseuds/Mrs%20King%20of%20Hell
Summary: After a hunting accident takes Dean out of the hunting game for good, he retires to a cottage in the woods with his one true love, but it's not exactly a fairy tale ending. Pain and disability chip away at his Happily Ever After--and his sanity. After he fails to protect Chloe from a monster out of the woods, Dean falls prey to the monsters in his own head, and she and Sam must come to his rescue.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 14





	Cabin Fever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RisingPhoenix761](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RisingPhoenix761/gifts).

Cold wind howled. It rattled the garage door behind him and whistled through its seams, but Dean had stopped paying it any mind a while ago. He was plenty warm, and it didn’t have much to do with the space heater clattering in the corner.

Bandit, the husky mix curled on the floor beside him, wasn’t much bothered by the storm, either. He slept soundly at his master’s feet while Dean carefully funneled salt into an empty shotgun shell. Years of practice replaced the necessity of measuring; each eyeballed scoop was perfect. Dean fitted the cap and tapped it gently into place with a rubber mallet, then he set the finished shell aside and reached for the next one.

He wasn’t sure why he was making salt shells except out of habit; it had been almost four years since he’d last been on a hunt. But there was precious little else he could do around the cottage, especially in winter, and he required distraction. Besides, Dean would rather pepper an intruder with rock salt than with lead. It’d get the job done just as well, he figured, and if it didn’t, there was always his custom Colt, though it sat on the nightstand most days.

Over the clank of the heater, Dean heard the front screen door slap to a close. It startled Bandit awake and set Dean’s heart tripping. The dog sprang to his feet, tail whipping, and scrambled through the flap in the door leading from the garage without so much as a glance in Dean’s direction. Dean couldn’t blame him. He spent his days just waiting for that sound himself, and each time, it made him just as giddy as Bandit. Dean set aside his unfinished shell and wheeled back from the workbench and toward the ramp to the kitchen.

The cottage hadn’t been designed with a wheelchair in mind, but Chloe had loved it so much that Sam had volunteered to adapt it so they could move in. Dean guided his chair through the widened doorway just in time to see his girlfriend heave an armful of heavy groceries up onto the kitchen counter while Bandit complicated things by jumping up to greet her, his claws scraping loudly on the wooden floorboards. She was windswept but grinning, and the sight made Dean’s breath hitch in his chest.

“You should have let me help,” he protested, reaching to help her unpack. His wheels didn’t do well on packed snow, but it was only a few feet from the driveway to the front door, and Dean could have managed.

Chloe shooed both him and the dog away. “I’ve got it,” she said with a shrug and a smile. She flexed a bicep for emphasis before bending to kiss him hello. The wind hadn’t rinsed away the scent of her perfume, and she smelled like winter and roses. Dean held his breath while she bent close, hoping he didn’t smell of Jack Daniels.

He could hear she was still winded from the haul, and his cheeks warmed with more than just whiskey, though he hid it well enough. He’d had ample practice in pretending it didn’t shame him that he allowed her to do so much on her own.

“Now, I know I mentioned coconut cream this morning,” Chloe said while she stripped her scarf to better rummage through the paper bags on the counter in front of her, “but since we’ve got all this clean, new snow, I thought snow ice cream would be in order. And nothing goes better with ice cream than apple pie,” she announced, lifting out a small bag of granny smiths with much fanfare.

Dean swallowed the sudden lump in his throat. He was feeling too many things at once to settle on any one of them, but he knew what she expected of him, and he managed an agreeable nod though only half a smile. “You know, you don’t have to make me a new pie every day, Princess.”

“I don’t make one every day. Sometimes it’s every other, you don’t put them away like you used to,” she winked.

The blush that lit Dean’s cheeks that time was more noticeable, but she turned away before he had to. It wasn’t even as often as that, but she was right. It took him a while to finish them these days.

Chloe liked to spoil him, and he tried his best to let her, but Dean hardly recognized his reflection anymore. He’d never been especially vain, and he knew his face would always be handsome, but now it was significantly broader than it once was--as was much of the rest of him. He’d acquired a whole other chin, which he hid fairly well beneath an impressive ginger beard, but it was still disconcerting and almost wounding the way Chloe persisted in looking at him like he was a goddamn snack.

“Sam will be here any minute,” she reminded him as she bustled around the kitchen, putting things away and taking others out. He made a point of visiting every other week or so despite Dean’s protests. It was a long drive to make just to placate an overly dependent sibling, but Sam insisted.

Dean woke from stinging thoughts to nod an acknowledgment. “What are we serving?”

While Chloe contemplated her answer, Dean plucked his cane from the corner and wheeled over to the open-faced pantry. Doors were too complicated with a wheelchair involved, and the carefully preserved harvest from last season’s victory garden was prettily displayed in rows along the far wall.

Dean was proud of the selection. The raised garden beds beside the house provided much. He had made them himself, both the beds and the shelves, back when that was still something he could do, though it had taken him far longer than it once might have. He could tend the majority of the vegetables from his chair. Instead of ghosts and shifters, Dean spent his springs and summers hunting hornworms and squash bug eggs. At least, when he was able; some days it took it out of him just getting out of bed.

This was one of those days. Nevertheless, he hoisted himself upright on unsteady legs to reach the higher shelves, leaning on his cane for balance. His bottom half wasn’t completely unserviceable, just fickle and unwieldy, the muscles in his legs having wasted to almost nothing. He’d have to recover from this venture in mobility later, but it was worth it sometimes to feel useful.

Dean could see Chloe’s concerned glance from the corner of his eye. “Oh, nothing fancy, I don’t think. I’m kind of tired. How about I make a meatloaf? Just grab that vegetable medley and I’ll nuke some potatoes to go with.”

He didn’t know whether she was trying to keep things simple because he seemed intent on helping, but the mention of being tired stole all the pride he’d mustered in the fruits of his labor. It was a reminder that Dean didn’t provide for them, despite the profusion of jars in front of him. She did. She brought home the bacon, literally, by working full time. And while it wasn’t exactly manual labor, nine hours at the Sioux Falls Public Library was nothing to sneeze at when the commute was half an hour both ways, and she had a practical invalid to look after when she got home.

Dean heaved a sigh, determined to do his part, and he shuffled to the end of the row of vegetables to reach for the requested jar when his foot caught on something furry and bad-tempered.

“Smokey!” Chloe scolded, but it was too late. Her gray cat shot from the room with a hiss while Dean stumbled, sending the jar in his hand crashing to the floor where he soon followed, cursing all the while. His cane went clattering out of reach, and Dean found himself on hands and knees with molten pain shooting through his hips and back. It eclipsed the pain in his hand where glass was embedded in his palm, but he was unable to take his weight off it lest he end up lying face first in the pool of corn and beans and brine beneath him. He was just grateful he hadn’t taken the rest of the shelf with him when he fell.

Chloe was on her knees in an instant, helping him to sit and lean back against her so she could examine his cuts. Dean looked dolefully over at the mess of blood and vegetables on the floor but was hurting too badly to apologize for it. A knock on the door prevented him anyway.

“Sam! Come in, we’re in the kitchen!” Chloe called, wrapping a towel around Dean’s injured hand. Dean squeezed his eyes shut against the sound of his brother’s footsteps carrying him closer to the site of Dean’s disgrace.

“What happened?” Sam’s voice bordered on panic, his every gesture solicitous as he dropped to a knee beside them.

Chloe’s tone was forcefully light in response, despite that her brow was still bunched with worry. “Just a little stumble.”

Sam helped her get Dean back into his chair so she could tend to his wounds. It was an undertaking, even with Sam’s strength, since Dean could do nothing but grimace as he was tugged into place. The way Sam had to hook his arms beneath Dean’s shoulders to lift him, and the sounds of the effort involved, never ceased to be humiliating. Chloe rushed to fetch pills and water and a first aid kit while Sam shuffled to one side as if waiting for direction. While Chloe fed Dean pain meds, Sam finally settled on grabbing the broom.

“Oh, I’ll get that,” Chloe objected, even as she frantically peeled bandaids to be at the ready.

“No, no. I’ve got it. You just take care of Dean.”

_Take care of Dean_. As if that wasn’t what she perpetually did.

Chloe nodded her thanks. “We haven’t even really started dinner,” she apologized as she poured antiseptic over Dean’s lacerated palm. “I was late getting home. Roads were bad. It might be a minute.”

Sam waved her off. “It’s fine. Why don’t you let me take a crack at it? I’m not completely helpless in the kitchen,” he smiled, still urging glass shards and chopped carrots into the dustpan and to the trash from there.

Dean, meanwhile, could barely mark the exchange, was practically immune to the sting of Chloe picking splinters of jar from his hand while he focused on breathing through the pain in his back. What he did catch of it, though, only made him feel more wretched. Sam was cleaning up his mess, would be cooking them dinner, and Dean couldn’t even pull a damned jar from the shelf.

“You okay, Papa?” Chloe asked once she’d applied the last of the bandages. Her look was concerned, and Dean wanted to set her at ease, but all he could do was nod. He wasn’t okay, physically or otherwise, but that wasn’t what she was asking. She was asking if her job there was done so she could move on to the next one. He managed a tight, forced smile, and she returned it briefly, giving him a kiss on the cheek and a gentle squeeze to his uninjured hand before she rose to her feet to help Sam.

Dean watched them prepare dinner while he waited for his pain meds to slowly take hold. Their conversation was casual now that the crisis was over, their laughter was easy and their movements as they bustled around the kitchen looked practically choreographed. Dean remembered a time when he and Sam had shared the same wordless synchronicity, clearing a house or fighting a monster. The only thing Dean fought these days was the battle to stay upright longer than a few hours.

He sat at the end of the counter, wanting to feel included even though he couldn’t participate, and Chloe reached out to run her fingers affectionately through his increasingly shaggy hair whenever she came close. After the third time Sam had to shuffle around him, though, Dean wheeled himself out of the way and to the table. His departure was noted but not remarked upon, though their conversation did become more subdued.

Dean’s pain pills were in full effect by the time dinner was finally served, and he was reminded why he hated taking them. Both his body and his mind felt cumbersome. Pain clouded his brain as well, but not as much as medicine, and most of the time, Dean preferred the ache to the fog. Due to his tumble and the resulting aggravation to his back and hips, though, that wasn’t an option.

Of course, he preferred whiskey to either--its effects were both more immediate and more familiar--but thanks to Chloe’s prohibition on alcohol, Dean had to reserve the administration of his liquid prescription to the hours she was away. He let the two of them talk while he focused on bringing food from his plate to his mouth. His movements were sluggish, but with enough concentration, they were at least precise. He just wished he could taste what he was eating.

“So get this,” Sam told them animatedly, still chewing. “I was in Missouri last week. Three vamps outside of Springfield. Milk run, right?” He paused to fork another piece of meatloaf into his mouth, giving a tiny moan when it hit his tongue. “Chloe, this is really good,” he told her, loading his fork in anticipation of his next lusty bite.

Chloe flapped her hands at him, simultaneously shooing away the compliment and urging him to carry on with his story. “_Sam_,” she whined.

“Oh, right, Missouri.” He took his bite anyway but chewed and swallowed it quickly in order to continue.

Dean listened just as wistfully as Chloe. He could practically feel the weight of the machete in his hand when Sam described taking out the nest, the three vamps turning out to be five. Sam’s stories were always a double-edged sword, though. Dean had a feeling his brother embellished for his sake, he knew how Dean missed the work, and Dean wasn’t sure if he appreciated or resented it.

Chloe, who had never been involved with a hunt save the one where she and Dean had met, was as enraptured as ever, looking at Sam the way she once looked at Dean when he would tell her old hunting stories. She used to ask for them, especially on winter nights like that one, when the weather raged but they were snug by the woodstove in each other’s arms. Talking about a life he was no longer allowed to live had eventually proven too difficult for Dean, though. With a pang, he realized he couldn’t remember the last conversation he’d had with Chloe that wasn’t about pain levels or grocery lists.

“So, I was thinking--and hear me out here,” Chloe began with an optimistic gleam in her eye, handing a can of soda to Dean after dinner in lieu of the pie she didn’t get to bake, “…_goat_.”

“You were thinking goat?” said Dean, wondering if it was the pills that made the comment so confusing. Without thinking, he reached to accept the can she held out for him with his bandaged hand. Dean grimaced and almost dropped it, but Chloe quickly took it back with an apologetic smile as if the mistake had been hers. She popped it open for him before returning it, practically wrapping his uninjured hand around it that time.

Sam caught the blush Dean had successfully hidden from Chloe, and he stepped in to distract her to keep it that way.

“Goat? Like, in a stew, or…?” Sam asked with a playful lift of his eyebrow, twisting the cap off a beer.

“No, smartass,” she chuckled. She lifted a reproving eyebrow of her own as she accepted the bottle Sam offered. “Y’know, to keep. A dairy goat.”

Dean winced. He didn’t like to say no, didn’t want to ever deny her anything, but this wasn’t like adopting another cat. This was a farm animal, and she already kept three chickens. “Babe...goats are a lot of work.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” she assured him. “I’d take care of it.”

Dean winced harder. “That’s not what I…” He had been concerned about her workload increasing, not the potential of his. She looked so excited about the prospect, though, that he couldn’t bring himself to point that out. “No. Yeah, I mean... a goat,” he said instead, trying to muster some supportive enthusiasm despite that he was imagining having to sit back in his chair, like a bump on a log, while she took on even more responsibility. “Sounds awesome.”

It almost sounded sincere.

“Right?” She grinned as if already envisioning it. “We’d have fresh milk. We could make butter. And _cheese_. Plus, we’d have a _goat_.”

Again, Sam watched the exchange in silence, sensing Dean’s stress and unspoken concern. He cleared his throat.

“I think what Dean’s trying to say is, you’d need to build an enclosure first,” he said with a subtle nod of understanding to his brother, “study up, figure out the best breed, get all the equipment. I’m no farmer, but I’d bet goats are a little more complicated than chickens. As tempting as homemade cheese sounds,” he added with a small smile and a quirk of his brow as if genuinely tempted, “it’s just not something to rush into, you know?”

Chloe batted Sam lightly on the arm in mock offense, “What do you take me for?” Her laughter was tinkly and bright. It drew an involuntary smile to Dean’s lips. “It’s not like I’ve got one hidden in the garage with Baby. I’m just saying, it’s something I’d like us to consider,” she shrugged, turning a smile on Dean that made him want to give her the world. A dozen goats. A flock of sheep. A hundred head of longhorn if it meant she’d always look at him that way. Though, odds were, she’d forget about goats by spring. He forced himself to relax, content that disaster had been averted.

Of course, it might have just been the pills.

Chloe noticed Dean’s head nodding and her grin faded. She stood and started reaching for empty plates. “Sam, I think I’d better get Dean to bed. He’s had a day,” she said, her voice low. Dean hated when they spoke like he wasn’t sitting right there, hated them making decisions for him, but he couldn’t argue. He was flagging, Chloe just recognized it.

“Yeah, yeah. Do what you need to, I’ll clean up,” Sam offered, rising and taking the plates from her hands.

“Are you sure?” she asked, reluctant to accept but clearly running on fumes herself.

“Yes. I’m very sure. You guys head to bed. I’ll take care of this.”

“Well, alright. Your blankets are laid out on the couch. Firewood’s getting low, but there should be enough to keep you toasty tonight.”

Sam nodded his thanks and started stacking dishes. Dean managed to wish his brother a groggy goodnight as Chloe wheeled him past, and he felt Sam’s hand descend on his shoulder to deliver a solid squeeze, but Dean couldn’t make himself meet his eye.

* * *

Dean Winchester’s relationship with pain was complicated, to say the least. He’d been introduced to it early in life but, being unimpressed, had tended to ignore it. He was young, resilient; he rarely had to lend it more than the barest consideration. Pain was a transient thing. It was temporary. After almost every hunt, it tapped him on the shoulder, desperate for his attention, and Dean carried on as if it didn’t exist.

But that was before The Hunting Accident.

Now, Dean’s pain was no longer content to be politely ignored. It was ever-present, like a light that wouldn’t switch off, slowly but continually draining his battery. His condition was maddening, and he spent his days seeking distraction, desperate for anything that would pull his mind away from the unrelenting ache. Some days, Dean felt like he was strapped to Alastair’s table all over again, but this time in a corporeal body, one that wasn’t made new and whole each morning as his soul had been in Hell. That memory might have grown hazier with each passing year, but if nothing else now, Dean remembered the dread, the knowledge that surviving one day meant little when the next promised to be the same. All Dean had had to do before was lay and endure. Now, he was meant to go about living, to quietly watch TV or take out the trash, all while feeling like he was ever so gradually being flayed alive.

To say it was exhausting was an understatement.

Dean had tried to convey these things to his loved ones. Sam, of course, understood better than most, but Dean wasn’t sure even he could comprehend that, even though Dean was up, was ‘functioning’, he was still in pain. It was an easy thing to forget when you weren’t the one hurting, Dean supposed; especially when he didn’t bother to remind them because mentioning it was sometimes simply too much trouble. If Dean vocalized his every ache, their lives would be an unending chorus of his moans, and how wearying would that be?

Since he couldn’t whimper with his every waking breath, Dean laughed instead, when he could manage it; he smiled as often as he could summon one, and he knew it tricked Sam and Chloe into thinking he was okay. That wasn’t his aim, but he didn’t mind the side effect. He could see in their eyes how his pain hurt them, and he’d rather suffer alone. Sometimes, though, it took all of Dean’s strength to just be present; and he frowned so he wouldn’t grimace, and he was silent so he wouldn’t scream. Dean’s good days were never good, they just weren’t as bad.

On the bad days, Dean lay in bed, not because it helped, just because he had no choice. Not having the capacity to distract himself in any other way, Dean traced the pattern of the wood overhead--every knot, every band, over and over--to stave off the panic of knowing the pain would never end. Not ever. Living was pain, would always be pain, but perhaps he could hold on, by mapping the variegations in his ceiling, until it was at least less. At least little enough to allow him to go back to pretending he didn’t mind it.

Out of habit, Dean traced them now, again, for the millionth time, trying not to turn his head to see the Colt laying on the table beside their bed next to the alarm clock. Those, too, he’d contemplated far too often and for too long, watching as the minutes ticked over into hours, the click of the numbers changing not unlike the sound of the hammer being cocked on the firearm that sat in front of the vintage timepiece. Sixty times an hour, the sound reached Dean, as if the Colt itself were calling to him, reminding him it was there...reminding him what it offered. Sixty times an hour, for hours on end, almost every day, Dean contemplated its call, even if only for a moment, until he finally found the fortitude to heave himself out of bed and away from its siren song.

He’d have fled it before now, gotten up to brew coffee for when Chloe woke, but Sam was sleeping on the couch. Though his brother was an early riser, he rarely beat the sun, and the sky outside the window was still nearly dark.

Knowing Sam was close was a comfort. Dean missed him, and he looked forward to seeing him if only to hear a voice other than Chloe’s. But his brother’s biweekly visits were getting harder for Dean. Seeing Sam only reminded him of all the things he once was and would never be again--no matter how stubborn he was, no matter how much will power he possessed--because it was not an issue of mind over matter. Not this time.

Dean felt his thoughts turn dangerous. He knew if he didn’t interrupt them, he’d be forced to dig out the bottle of rotgut hidden in the back of the bureau and that Chloe would be disappointed. She slept peacefully beside him, and Dean concentrated on the sound of her breathing. He turned his back on the clock and the Colt, pulled his eyes away from the banded swirls overhead, and studied her face in the scant light from the hallway instead, drawing his strength from the grace of her features.

Chloe had been a godsend. She often said the same about him, but he’d just been a hunter, just doing what he’d always done. She’d been the answer to a prayer he hadn’t dared to utter, a guardian angel to replace the one he’d lost. Her healing powers were not as immediate as Cas’ had been, but they were more effective in ways more spiritual than physical, though she’d had more than a hand in the latter as well. If not for her, Dean would never have made it so far. After the doctors had finished wiring bits of him back together, after they replaced his joints and screwed what was left of his pelvis into place, she had helped him learn how to force the compliance of a body that no longer obeyed him. And once they had reached the limit of what could be tamed, she’d helped him maintain the wreckage he was forced to live in.

Dean reached out to touch her face. He hadn’t meant to disturb her, but Chloe’s eyes fluttered open, and she slipped into a smile before even properly awake. It made Dean’s heart jump to his throat.

“Hey, Papa Bear,” she whispered, shifting closer to him.

Dean drew her closer still and lay a kiss on her forehead. “Mornin’, Princess.”

Chloe dozed in his arms while the light outside the curtains brightened to a cool glow, and Dean relished her warmth and her weight against him. Her nearness was so soothing that Dean had almost drifted back to sleep himself when they were both reawakened by the slap of the front screen door.

He and Chloe grinned blearily at each other hearing Sam’s quiet curse through their bedroom window at having forgotten to ease it shut. Dean really should put a hydraulic hinge on the damned thing, but he didn’t want to think about it, not now that Chloe’s hands were roaming, warming his skin despite the morning chill. He barely registered the sound of Bandit’s nails clicking on the hardwood, carrying him outside to see what Uncle Sammy was up to.

With the house now empty, Dean slipped his hand under Chloe’s nightshirt to trace the curve of her waist. Their pursed but smiling lips found and brushed across one another, both of them shy about the state of their breath but finally deciding not to care when Dean swept his palm up Chloe’s back. It wasn’t long before her tongue found his. Dean didn’t have the breath or the confidence for words, but each kiss was a declaration.

_I love you._

He pressed it to the underside of her jaw, down her neck.

_I love you, I love you._

_I love you_ smoothed over the skin of her shoulder, massaged into her lips, crushed to her chin and dragged from there to the velvet soft swell of her breast. He wanted to emblazon it on every inch of her but was limited to what she brought within reach, and he was grateful when she unfastened the buttons of her shirt to practically set her nipple against his worshipful lips.

Her fingers tangled in the hair at the back of his head, and though he needed no urging, the sensation was sublime. She inundated him. He could taste her hunger, and he was drunk on it. But though he stirred, he didn’t harden. He tried, concentrated on it. It’d been so long and she deserved this.

Dean often made it up to her in other ways, when he was up to it. On his better days, he spent hours at a time doing with lips and tongue and hands what he couldn’t do with the rest of him. But he knew she missed this other way of being together just as much as he did. It was bad enough that she had to do most of the work, the least he could do was give her something to work with.

Dean bit back a curse when Chloe’s leg slid up and over his hip, but he dropped a hand to keep it there. If she knew how badly he was still hurting from the day before, she’d pull away, and he didn’t want her to. Dean would always hurt, but that didn’t always mean he needed to stop. She heard his sharp intake of breath anyway, felt the interruption in his attention, and she urged him onto his back where she could work her own sweet nothings into the surface of his skin.

The steady thunk of firewood being chopped somewhere outside was only a minor distraction. Chloe lifted her lips from Dean’s neck long enough to mutter, ‘Oh, bless him,’ before continuing to kiss a trail down Dean’s chest. Dean focused on the caress of her lips, the nip of her teeth. His breathing was heavy, but his arousal was still fickle.

And then she worked her way lower.

Dean disliked her touching his fat, disliked being reminded it was there. It made him feel the furthest thing from sexy, but sometimes, like when she was sleepy, Chloe forgot his objection to it. His weight didn’t bother her. She liked squeezing him tight around the middle and cuddling his softness, and while it was endearing, it was a mood killer for Dean. She didn’t linger, but by the time she moved on, he knew it wasn’t happening for them that morning. He’d known it before she’d drifted away from his lips, and he couldn’t bring himself to let her keep trying.

“It’s not...Baby, I can’t,” he told her, anguished. She looked up at him from where she’d settled between his legs already, and once upon a time, that sight would nearly have finished him, but now it didn’t even bring him half mast. He swallowed that grief and brought a hand to her cheek, his gentle touch reinforcing his whispered apology, “Not this time. I’m sorry.”

Chloe sighed, but it was more wistful than disappointed, and there was a smile on her lips. She pressed a kiss to the hollow of his hip as if bidding it goodbye and climbed her way back up to him. “Hey. It’s okay,” she said, combing her fingers through his hair. She could see he was unconvinced and bent to brush the tip of his nose with hers. “Really, Dean, I don’t mind. Kissing is always the best part anyway.”

“Yeah, well, _it didn’t used to be_,” he groused. The pain he’d ignored earlier made its presence known again in the form of a grouchy mood. She was used to these swings, but he had no business barking at her like Bandit was now barking at some perceived woodland trespasser outside. She was patient while he wrangled his frustration back into commision.

“I’m sorry, Chloe. It’s not your fault. God, I shouldn’t fuss at you, I just-”

She silenced his abashed apology with a kiss, drawing back to cup his face in her hands. “Dean. _It’s okay,_” she repeated, holding his gaze until he accepted it with a reluctant nod. He slipped his hand over hers and turned to kiss her palm, but the time for passion was over, and Bandit’s barking could no longer be ignored. She tipped her ear to it with a sigh.

“That coyote had better not be trying to get at my chickens again,” she muttered, giving Dean a quick peck on the cheek before rolling away from him and out of bed.

The sound of firewood being chopped continued to thump from the front yard while Bandit was picking up steam in the back. Added to the cacophony was the clomp of Chloe’s footsteps as she marched through the house to shout through the back door for the husky to cut it out. There was no going back to sleep at that point. Dean pushed himself to a sitting position and swung his legs off the bed.

Mornings were always a challenge, and just getting upright took Dean’s breath. He sat still for a moment to wait for the ache in his joints to settle into something manageable. His bandaged hand was tender, causing the clamber from the bed to his chair to be especially ungraceful; it also made controlling it even more difficult than usual as he wheeled over to sneak his morning dose of liquid medicine from the bottle behind the dresser. By the time Dean pulled on a shirt and made his way into the kitchen, Chloe was no longer there.

“Hey, off the counter, bud,” Dean grumbled to Smokey. His nose tingled with the threat of a sneeze, but Chloe’s cat rarely allowed him near enough that one actually materialized.

The aversion was mutual, and after yesterday’s trip, Dean was even less keen. He went to reach for the coffee can on the countertop behind the cranky hairball, coming close enough that it usually sent Smokey scurrying, but the cat didn’t move. When Dean turned to chastise him, he noticed the ridge of fur raised along his back.

Puzzled, Dean followed Smokey’s line of sight, and he scowled when he noticed that the backdoor stood ajar. Dean craned to look through the crack, but all he saw were Chloe’s footprints in the deep, fresh snow, leading away from the chicken coop and toward the copse of trees behind it.

Dean couldn’t see what had Smokey so riled, but his disquiet unsettled him. He glanced behind him through the bay window in the living room and saw Sam out front, lining up another log to split. The cord from his earbuds peeked from under his hair. Bandit still barked, but Chloe was nowhere in sight.

His hunter’s instincts weren’t what they once were, but something felt wrong to Dean. He set down the coffee can and called for Chloe.

She didn’t respond.

“Babe?” he repeated, louder this time, when Bandit’s barks turned harsher. The husky snarled, was clearly confronting something, and Dean didn’t think it was a coyote. Before he could wrestle his chair around to reach the back door and open it properly, with a yelp, Bandit fell silent.

The sudden stillness was crippling. Dean’s impulse was to move, but after years of attempting to do things he was no longer able, like spring from his chair, his body had learned to ignore him when he told it do anything with haste. Dean knew one wrong move could put him out of commission and he had to consider his options carefully or else he’d fail to accomplish anything, but he hadn’t been faced with this kind of urgency since before his accident. He was unaccustomed to reconciling his impulse with his ability, and it slowed his response.

It was the sharp clip of a log being split that snapped him out of it finally.

“Sam!” he called, gripping his push-rims but unsure, yet, in which direction to urge them. That would depend on his brother’s reply.

Sam, probably listening to some droning podcast at full volume to hear it over his ax, was oblivious, merely bent to fit another piece of wood on the block. Dean tried to stay level-headed, but as the seconds ticked by, his panic started to stir.

“Chloe!” Dean cried, afraid he wouldn’t be able to hear her reply over the pounding of his heart. He held his breath and listened, heard her quiet sob but no answer.

If he was able-bodied, he’d have been down the hall to collect his Colt and out the back door already. He went to spin his chair to do just that but was brought up short when pain shot up his arm from his injured hand. Dean cursed, gripping it by the wrist as if to staunch the ache. Blood seeped through the bandages.

Dean glared at it. He didn’t have time for this shit.

He couldn’t afford to fight his damned wheelchair back to and from their bedroom. Dean would have to settle for the shotgun leaning against the wall by the back door. He wheeled over to it, painting his push rim with blood, and laid it across his knees before wrenching the door out of the way and finally rolling out onto the back porch.

The sight that met him, not the icy air, froze Dean’s breath in his lungs.

Chloe was standing stock still a ways off the porch with her hand to her mouth and tears streaming down her face. She was wearing nothing but pajamas and rain boots. The snow between her and the treeline was stained red but was too deep for Dean to see what could only be Bandit.

Standing over him was one of the biggest mountain lions Dean had ever seen. Its ribs were visible, its stomach sunken. Winter hadn’t been kind to the beast. Its tawny fur was smeared with Bandit’s blood, but its eyes were on Chloe.

For a moment, the sound of Sam’s ax was all that split the silence while the horror of the situation sank in. The cat was too close. Chloe was too far away. Dean looked out at the two-foot deep blanket of snow that stretched from the bottom of his ramp to where Chloe stood and knew his chair would be useless. _He _was useless. All the determination in the world could not magically restore his wasted muscles or tame his damaged nerves, nevermind the pain.

Dean eased his chair forward anyway, but the crunch of his wheels in the shallow snow on the wooden deck unsettled the big cat, and so Dean stopped and tried to reach her with his voice instead.

“Chloe,” said Dean, just loud enough to be heard over her terrified breathing. The cat glanced at him and growled, but Dean persisted; he had no other choice. He kept his tone even. “_Don’t turn around_. Baby, don’t run. Just back slowly toward the house.”

Each echo of Sam’s ax seemed to disquiet the mountain lion more. Chloe didn’t move, but it did. The cat began to stalk, and Dean willed Chloe to pick up her feet, to come back to him, but she seemed frozen. Dean could see her tremble.

“_Chloe._”

The cat hissed at him, but it woke Chloe from her paralysis. She took a cautious step back, almost stumbling in the snow. The mountain lion bristled when she righted herself, and Chloe started to whimper.

“One foot back behind the other, Princess, you can do this,” Dean urged. The crack of Sam’s ax unsettled him, too. The snow devoured all other sounds. There was only the rush of his own blood in his ears, the rasp of their cloudy breath, and the clockwork strike of the ax like muted gunshots, each one making them jump.

Dean’s hand was on the shotgun in his lap, but it was only loaded with rock salt, and at that distance, it wouldn’t even tickle the big cat. Dean saw it crouch, saw it make up its mind, and on impulse, he seized his wheels to propel his chair forward. They refused to gain traction at first, and he was frantic, seeing the cat ready its spring. By the time they caught and launched him in Chloe’s direction, the mountain lion was on the move.

“_Chloe, run!_”

Dean slid more than rolled down the ramp, spilling from his chair the instant its casters reached the snow. For a moment, there was nothing in Dean’s world but pain. It wracked his entire body, blinded him, but still he crawled, clawing through the snow toward the sound of Chloe’s scream.

The cat was almost halfway to her before Chloe turned and made a break for the porch. Time seemed to slow. Dean watched as her legs pumped, struggling to clear the snow and ultimately failing, sending her to her knees just yards from him.

Adrenaline eased Dean’s pain but made his limbs no more useful. He scrambled to reach the shotgun he’d dropped, using it to help him drag himself toward her since his traitorous legs refused to find purchase.

Dean saw the cat bound before Chloe managed to find her feet. He was never going to make it. Neither of them were. And the moment they realized it, Chloe and Dean locked eyes over the drift that separated them. Their panicked breath fogged the air till they could barely see, but they reached for one another despite the unbridgeable distance between them just as the lion bore down on her.

The scream Chloe loosed when the cat’s claws snagged her leg, tugging her closer, away from Dean, was rawer than the ones before it, more jagged. She rolled to her back and brought up her arms, locking her elbows in time to prevent the thing from dropping its jaws to her throat. While the cat hissed and thrashed, Chloe continued to scream, but each one was fainter than the last. She wouldn’t be able to hold it off her for much longer.

During their struggle, the lion’s claws opened the flesh of Chloe’s arm, and it triggered flashbacks in Dean to the day they had met; him watching as a werewolf ripped into Chloe’s brother after having heaved Dean into a dilapidated concrete pillar, collapsing it on top of him and shattering his lower body. Dean’s Colt, loaded with silver bullets, had saved them then, but now it lay useless on the table beside their bed.

Dean would not prove the broken hero this time. This time, he was merely broken. A sob escaped his throat on seeing Chloe’s arms shudder and start to bend.

Dean refused it. He refused to lay whimpering in the snow while Chloe suffered and died in front of him. With a defiant roar, Dean forced himself upright, feeling pain ricochet through his hips in response but telling it to go fuck itself. His vision swam, but he cocked the shotgun he held with hands numbed by cold, brought it to his shoulder, and aimed. It wouldn’t kill the beast, but maybe Dean could distract it. When he pulled the trigger, the kick toppled him again, and Dean wasn’t sure he could get back up a second time.

Chloe might have taken as much salt as the cat, but the shot served its purpose. The mountain lion loosed an indignant hiss and backed away from Chloe, seeming to forget her entirely as it swiped at its muzzle with its massive, bloodied paw.

Then, before Dean could even heave a sigh of relief, the cat recovered and turned its ire on him.

Perhaps Dean should have anticipated it, but he hadn’t. He was too long out of the game. Dean went to pump the shotgun again, but the blood from his injured hand made his grip slip. While he fumbled, the cat lunged, its maw open with the intention of clamping it around Dean’s face; so instead of trying to fire it, Dean turned the gun sideways, wedging it into the back of the lion’s jaws. Its teeth sank into the forestock as if it were made of clay, not wood.

Dean held the cat at arm’s length as Chloe had, but it leaned all its weight against Dean’s trembling reach, sapping what little strength he had left. The beast’s amber eyes bore straight into him as if to say it knew, as well as Dean did, that it was only a matter of time before the cat prevailed.

Dean wasn’t about to just give up, but even as he grunted with the effort of keeping the lion at bay, he felt a kind of peace in the inevitable, and he welcomed it. The sound of Chloe crying his name seemed muted and distant. The rapid crunching of footsteps nearby went almost unmarked as Dean watched the cat lift its paw, claws extended, to bring things to a merciful close.

The wet thud of Sam’s ax sinking into the back of the cat’s neck was nothing like the crisp clip of cleaved logs, and Dean didn’t fully realize what had happened until the mountain lion went slack. Even then, he hardly dared to believe it until he let his fatigued arms fall, and the cat collapsed on top of him. Despite being starved, it was heavy, and Dean grimaced as it crushed his screaming hips against the snow.

Sam moved to help shift it, but Dean shook his head, objected through gritted teeth, “_Chloe first_.”

Sam ignored the command and heaved the limp carcass off of Dean before rushing to Chloe’s side. Dean couldn’t be angry at him for it; he’d been in agony. He was still, but the difference was so vast, it felt almost like relief.

Dean’s chest heaved. He was covered with blood, cooling rapidly in the chill winter air. Under his hand, the mountain lion’s body was doing the same. Chloe sobbed, and it seemed Dean felt it more than heard it. Each of her gasps made it harder for him to breathe. He wanted to hold her, to treat her wounds and wipe her tears, but he could no longer move.

Dean glanced over to see Sam speaking soothingly to Chloe while applying a tourniquet, and he heaved a grateful sigh. She was in good hands. Dean allowed himself, finally, to sink back into the snow and close his eyes.

* * *

The waves were small but steady, breaking relentlessly on the shore of Dean’s resolve. It had been a while since the last big swell, though. The next was due soon.

The anticipation was almost worse than the actual pain. Dean’s heart raced, unable to appreciate the relative lull. His mind muttered denial like a prayer. He didn’t want to have to ride out yet another surge of blinding ache.

Knowing he’d survive it meant nothing to him just then. He was on Alastair’s table while the bastard was choosing the next implement. He might be made new again in the morning, but what did that matter now? In this moment?_ The knife was coming_. That’s all that mattered, that’s all he could think about.

Anxiety attacks were dangerous, he knew. They perpetuated his pain. He was always afraid that one day they would precipitate into proper madness, and his hold on sanity seemed tenuous already. He needed to pull himself out of it.

Dean fixed his eyes on a darkened band in the wood above him; the one in the very center that crowned the oval knot directly overhead; the one he always started with. He followed it as it crested and began its descent, joining dozens of others like it.

His vision blurred. He lost track of the line.

Dean swept his eyes back up, found it, and repeated the process, muttering a curse when he lost it again almost immediately.

He was too distracted for this distraction.

His pills had worn off, but Dean was reluctant to take any more. He was almost as afraid of them as he was of the pain. They made him sick, and his stomach was already in knots. They made him foggy, and he already couldn’t focus. He’d lolled in groggy oblivion all day, still hurting but too stoned to be consumed by it, and it had felt like drowning. Or rather, it had felt like a nightmare of drowning that he couldn’t wake from. Though his lungs drew air, the water was thick and there was no knowing how deep it went. He didn’t want to sink, so he struggled to rise, despite that surfacing meant pain.

Another wave of it wracked him, and Dean forgot all about nauseating oceans and patterns in wood. His mind went blank. His body stilled. Even his lungs froze while he rode it out. It seemed to last forever, but then, they always did.

As his ache subsided, Dean felt his desperation swell to fill the space it vacated. When he was once again able, he attempted to breathe it back down. He concentrated on the rise and fall of his chest, the draw and release of air, the sensation of it passing over his lips and through his nose.

What little of Dean’s mind that was free to wander went to the dresser with its hidden whiskey. It would help, would blunt the pain but allow him to keep more of his senses, but it seemed so far away.

Impossibly far.

His desperation returned. It halved the breaths that sought to tame it. He was restless, but he knew moving would only make things worse.

Worse until he made it to the dresser, at any rate. Would it be worth it? Was there enough left in the bottle to touch this?

The clock beside him ticked over, now as reminiscent of ax falls as of gun hammers. It was not the distraction he’d wanted, but he didn’t seem to have a choice in the matter. In his mind, Dean was up to his chin in snow again while Chloe and the mountain lion both screamed.

Dean’s eyes flew open to ground him in the here and now, but he was panting. He felt faint. Thoughts of Chloe’s pain were worse than memories of his own. He forced himself to breathe again, long and slow.

Dean told himself she was safe, that he could relax, but his body was distrustful of the assertion. How could it know for certain unless Dean held her?

Chloe might be safe, but she was beyond his reach--in the hospital, where Dean hadn’t been able to follow. There had only been room for one in the ambulance. All they could have done for him at Sanford was give him pain meds anyway, and Dean had plenty of those at home. He had hurt too badly to make the trip into Sioux Falls by any means, had known he would have been worthless company regardless if he’d had enough drugs to make the trip possible.

At least Jody was with Chloe. Sam had called her instead of 911. She had arranged the ambulance, leading it to their out-of-the-way place in her cruiser so Sam could concentrate on getting Dean and Chloe out of the snow. He had stayed behind with Dean while the girls had sped away under flashing lights.

At least Dean’s shame at the memory cooled the worst of his panic.

Dean should be there. He might have to make the journey after all, as much for his sake as for hers. The sound of her voice was better medicine even than whiskey. It soothed his soul as much as his pain.

Her love was a balm, and yet Dean still couldn’t quite fathom how he’d won it. Chloe had never known him when he was whole. Part of him felt like he’d misled her somehow, tricked her into loving him. He wondered sometimes if it was more pity than love--a sense of responsibility, considering he’d been broken while saving her brother’s life. He wasn’t sure he could afford to care at that point, but he had at one time.

Before they’d moved in together, how many times had Dean stopped himself from telling her he loved her, even though it was on the tip of his tongue? How many times had he typed out the words ‘I’m lonely for you’ only to delete the text without sending it? Because he wasn’t sure. He hadn’t known if he was just desperate to be held or if it was her specific arms he craved. It had seemed wrong to encourage her feelings when he was so uncertain of his own, so unused to feeling that kind of need at all. He hadn’t been sure he wanted to subject her to his condition, either. It had been bad enough that Sammy bore the brunt, missing out on hunts when Dean was having bad days. How could he allow someone else, someone with no obligation, to step in and inherit that burden?

She had, though. She’d been there for Dean when he needed her most, when she didn’t have to be. She was there for him even when it was hard on her. Dean figured he could damn sure return the favor.

After he reached his whiskey, that was.

Dean clamped his mouth shut against the cry that rose in his throat when he forced himself upright. His vision swam, but he reached for his chair anyway. The task required so much of his concentration, it wasn’t until after Sam had opened the bedroom door that Dean even registered his quiet knock.

“Whoa! Hey, what are you doing?”

“I’m going to go see my girlfriend in the hospital,” Dean grunted, lifting the armrest on his wheelchair in anticipation of getting into it. He was almost certain he was sweating with the effort involved so far.

Sam shook his head, less in disagreement than in denial of what was happening. “_You_ need to be back in bed. Chloe’ll kill me if she knows I let you up,” he insisted, his hands out as if he wanted to prevent what was happening but was afraid to interfere. Not that he didn’t still try to dissuade Dean.

“Hey, she’s about to be released anyway,” Sam rushed to tell him, “Jody just called to ask me to bring her a change of clothes, that’s why I came in here.”

Dean nodded his understanding. Then he took a deep breath and heaved himself sideways and into his wheelchair, crying out despite his determination not to.

“Dammit, Dean,” Sam muttered, exasperation and concern bunching his features.

Dean ignored his brother’s scowl, needing a moment to allow his pain to subside. The experience hadn’t been as agonizing as he’d expected it to be, but it still winded him and made his head spin. “You said she needed clothes, didn’t you?”

Sam huffed a sigh at his brother’s stubbornness but nodded. “Do you need more pills?” he asked, his concern winning out in the end. “It’s about time, isn't it?”

“What I need is for you to wheel me over to that dresser.”

Sam hesitated as if in silent protest, but eventually, he did as he was asked. Instead of opening drawers, though, once he was close enough, Dean took over his chair and backed to the corner to reach into the gap between the dresser and the wall.

“Dean,” Sam objected hesitantly, “your meds. You shouldn’t-”

_“Sam,” _Dean warned.

Sam sighed again and shuffled over to take a seat on the end of the bed while Dean cracked open his whiskey, almost losing the cap in his eagerness to get it off. It had only been a token argument on Sam’s part. They’d been mixing pain meds and alcohol for years, but Sam had made a promise to Chloe not to encourage Dean’s drinking.

Damned if they didn’t deserve a drink after the day before, though.

Sam waited while Dean tipped the bottle to his lips. And then again. And then a third time. When Dean was done, he offered it to Sam who took a long draw before handing it back. They were quiet for a while, allowing the warmth in their bellies to spread itself through their veins. Dean felt his pain mellow enough to allow him to breathe, and he gave a grateful sigh.

“I couldn’t save her, Sammy,” Dean said finally, staring out the window at the early morning sun creeping over the treacherous fucking snow. It would be a while before he could consider it beautiful again.

“Of course, you did, Dean,” Sam argued gently but with a scowl, sounding pained by the statement. “If not for you, she’d-”

_“I_ didn’t save us, Sam. You did.”

Sam hesitated to answer. “Does it really matter if you’re both safe?”

“You know it does,” said Dean, “to me.”

It might have been the shotgun blast that finally alerted Sam to what was going on, but Dean shuddered to think how things would have turned out if Sam hadn’t been visiting that week. With a heavy sigh, he lifted the bottle to his lips once more, taking an even longer draw than the last one. It was helping with more than just his pain, though he knew, if he had too much, that could change.

“I really thought that was going to be it, you know?” he confessed, still to the window. He didn’t think he could bear to see the pity that was no doubt in Sam’s expression. “I thought I was going to watch that cat take her from me.” He shivered. “I can’t even imagine what I’d be without her.”

But he could imagine. He’d be nothing. He felt like the only reason he existed anymore was to be loved by Chloe, to eat her pies and to see her smile. She, though...she’d be just fine without Dean. She’d be better off, even.

“She’s going to be fine,” Sam assured him.

“She’s going to be scarred,” Dean growled in response, “forever, because I couldn’t even get down the fucking hall to get my gun!” The frustration of it was almost unbearable, but it was nothing to do with Sam. Dean took a calming breath. “I could have taken care of it with one shot, Sammy,” he told him more evenly. “It could have been over like _that_,” he said with a snap, “if I wasn’t…”

He shook his head at himself, unable to finish that sentence in a way that wouldn’t invite argument from Sam. They both knew how Dean had wanted to finish it, though.

“Y’know, there was a moment, right before you came around the porch, when I was convinced it was lights out for me,” said Dean, guilty already over what he was about to say but feeling its clawing need to be uttered. He finally met his brother’s eye, “And you want to know something? _I was okay with it_.”

Sam’s brow creased. He cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably on the bed, but he didn’t interrupt. His eyes did fall momentarily from Dean’s as if the pain in his brother’s expression wounded him. He forced himself to lift them again, though.

“I’d always expected to die bloody,” Dean went on then, “It wasn’t a werewolf or a demon, but it was still a monster, and it felt right. Y’know, it felt _fitting_. And when that ax came down…” Dean gave a mirthless laugh and shook his head. “Not gonna lie, Sammy, part of me was disappointed,” he admitted, taking another sizeable draw of whiskey.

The crease in Sam’s brow deepened, but he didn’t say anything for a while, he just held out his hand in a silent request for the bottle as if whiskey would help him sort his response. Dean handed it over. The reach pulled something in his back, though, and he grimaced. While Sam took his drink, Dean adjusted himself in his chair, trying to alleviate his discomfort.

“Dean,” Sam ventured, “you should be in b-”

“I am so goddamn _sick _of being in bed!” Dean bellowed before Sam could even finish suggesting it. He felt bad for having shouted at him, but Dean was, he was so fucking sick and tired of being confined: to bed, to his chair, to the house.

He tugged open the drawer at his knees and rummaged until he found Chloe’s favorite pair of warm pajama bottoms. Another drawer provided a shirt and socks. He wheeled around and traded his brother the clothes for the half-empty bottle. Sam took them reluctantly, but Dean didn’t give him a chance to respond before he turned his chair again to look back out the window.

Though clearly dismissed, Sam made no move to go. Dean could practically feel his brother’s consternated stare. “They’re waiting for you, Sammy,” Dean prompted.

Dean eventually heard the bedroom door close softly behind him. He took another swig of whiskey as he watched Sam pull away.

He didn’t know how long he sat there after, looking out at the melting snow and nursing his bottle, imagining all the things he could have done differently ‘if’. _If _the snow hadn’t been too deep. _If _he’d had his Colt. _If _his hand hadn’t been cut_. If _he hadn’t been stuck in that fucking chair, could have stood, could have run. And each ‘if’ seemed to deserve its own swig of whiskey.

Time felt inconsistent. It lost its proportion. Dean’s perception of it swelled and contracted. Minutes felt like hours. One moment, he thought he'd go mad with waiting, so ready to hear Chloe’s voice but unsure how he dared to face her after failing her so badly. The next, all structured thought abandoned him. Limbs warm and heavy with drink, his pain faded to the background, and he felt he could drift in timeless silence forever.

Then the clock ticked over.

Dean had done well to ignore it for a while, but he couldn’t any longer. It caused phantom ax strikes to echo through his memory. Or were they gunshots? Dean turned his back on the snow finally and took another swig of whiskey. He’d had too much too fast. He was drunk, would be drunk when Chloe got home. But then, he let her down daily. What was once more?

The clock ticked over again and Dean tipped his bottle to his lips to drown it out only to find it was empty. He grumbled to himself, craning around to glare at the alarm as if his lack of alcohol was its fault. Why couldn’t it let him brood in peace? He got so little. It was only a matter of time before his whiskey wore off, and then the pain would return. He wanted oblivion until then, but the damned clock kept tainting it.

As if to mock him, it ticked over again.

Dean felt like ripping the damned thing out of the fucking wall. He wheeled over as if he might do just that, but then his drunken glare fell to the Colt, and he froze. Dean picked it up, replacing it on the table with the empty bottle.

It felt like forever since he’d held it, even though he was careful to keep it in good condition. It hadn’t been that long since he’d cleaned it, but that was different. It’d been forever since he’d held it with purpose. The shape of it in his hand was familiar, comforting. Dean wrapped his hand around its grip and appreciated its heft.

The clock ticked over, and it was as if the Colt had whispered to him, greeted him like an old friend too long away. They’d been through so much together. The Colt had been loaded with a dozen different kinds of ammo over the years and dispatched as many different kinds of enemies. It had been by his side for decades, had always had his back, had been there for him when nothing and no one else had.

“I sure could have used your help yesterday, buddy,” said Dean.

The clock ticked over again as if the Colt were saying, ‘I’m here now.’

_Could _it help him now? If he brought the barrel to his ear, would it whisper the answer to him? Show him the way out of this perpetual limbo of pain and humiliation? Dean was tempted, felt the inexplicable calm he’d felt before while watching the mountain lion lift its paw. The Colt suddenly felt so light, like it wanted to rise, too. Maybe he should listen to it, just for a little while...

Dean’s hand had lifted halfway to its destination when he heard a gasp from the doorway.

“Dean?”

“_Chloe_.”

He hadn’t heard them pull up, hadn’t even heard them come inside. It’d been a while since he’d had so much to drink, and Dean jolted back to the here and now so quickly it left him bewildered.

Dean dropped the gun onto his lap. It was suddenly just a hunk of metal, no longer sentient, no longer significant. All that mattered was standing in front of him with a look of shocked horror marring her gentle features.

Chloe’s left arm was in a sling and her right manned a crutch. Dean wheeled out of the way so she could shuffle in and take a seat on the bed. She settled onto the mattress and set her crutch aside to allow Dean to take her hand and bring it to his lips. She still wore her paper bracelet.

Chloe didn’t smell like roses. She smelled like hospital sheets, like the astringent musk of ointments and adhesives and sterilized medical equipment. Her face and shoulder were dotted with tiny wounds, some bandaged, where she was hit by rock salt, and the sight gripped Dean like a fist around his heart.

He had done that.

“I’m so sorry, Princess.”

Her brow was crimped, and his mirrored it. She reclaimed her hand to lay it on his cheek, and Dean turned and pressed his lips the inside of her wrist. The gesture smoothed her brow, and her lips tugged into a small smile, “For what, sugar?”

“For these,” said Dean, brushing his fingertips over the nearest bandage. “This wouldn’t have happened if I could...if I wasn’t…”

Chloe pulled his fingers away from her face and into her lap where she held them tightly, silencing him with a shake of her head. “Dean, none of this is your fault.” She sighed and glanced uneasily at the gun in his lap and then over to where it usually rested. “Is that the bottle from the dresser? I didn’t think there was that much still in it.”

Her tone had been light, but Dean’s eyes drifted to the bottle he’d left sitting empty on the bedside table with a pang. He hadn’t meant for her to see it despite that evidence of its consumption could be found on his breath, and in the droop of his eyelids, and in the drawl of his speech.

He felt he’d always known she was aware he stashed booze around the house. Apparently, she even knew where. She knew she couldn’t stop him from drinking, she’d just gotten tired of watching him slowly killing himself, and having to hide it had slowed him down. Pretending the prohibition had worked made their lives more peaceful.

Now he’d gone and ruined that illusion. His eyes rose sheepishly to hers. “Chloe, I-”

“It’s okay,” she shushed him. “Sam told me you didn’t take your pills. I just don’t want to lose you on accident, y’know?” she told him, reaching up to brush the hair from his eyes so she could look into them.

“Might not be the worst thing.” The comment slipped out before he quite realized it, and her answering distress inspired his. He hadn’t been this loose-lipped in a while. He must really have had too much.

Perhaps it was a good thing, though. It had been _honest_, something Dean felt he hadn’t been in a long while. He hated hurting her, and it had caused him to leave so much unsaid for so long. Like how he spent his days just waiting for her to realize how much better off she’d be without him, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Maybe this was just what they needed, for him to throw the damned thing to the floor himself. Chloe might not like it, but even if he couldn’t save her from the lion, he could at least save her from himself. And it might hurt like a son of a bitch, but sometimes that was the first step to making things better. She’d see that eventually. Now, though...

“Dean, how could you say something like that?” she said, gasping on the last few words as if the thought robbed her of breath.

“Princess, just hear me out...”

“No, Dean,” she cut him off, jerking back her hand to press it to her heart.

He held his hands up in a placating gesture. “It’s just...maybe the best thing for you isn’t the best thing for me, and that’s okay,” he argued gently. “It’s _okay _for you to do what’s good for you, Chloe. And maybe what’s good for you is not being with me.”

She scowled at him, rejected the notion with a shake of her head. “Where is this coming from? Why would you say that?”

“I’ve just been thinking,” he said. Dean took a deep breath and called on the supplemental courage in his veins. The Colt’s weight in his lap somehow made the situation less terrifying. “I’ve been thinking about things for a long time, and yesterday just made it all that much clearer.”

He tried to take her hand, but she pulled it back, out of his reach. And that hurt, but he supposed he deserved it. He was hurting her, after all. He felt wretched about it--she’d been through so much recently--but if he didn’t say these things here, now, while they were on his heart and so willing to be spilled, he might never find the resolve again.

“You do so much more for me than I _can _do for you. I swear, some days all I can manage is to pull my ass out of bed. You shouldn’t have to-”

“I _don’t _have to. I don’t do things for you because I have to, Dean. I do them because I want to.”

“But why?”

It was an honest and plaintive question. He wanted her to spell it out. Perhaps if she did, she could hear for herself how inadequate the answer was.

All she said, though, was, “Because I love you.”

Dean shook his head at her, not doubting it, just struggling to understand.

“_But why?”_ Asking it aloud made him ache, but because he loved her, he felt he had to. “How am I enough? You deserve so much more-”

“You hush that now,” she told him, becoming more piqued than hurt.

“No. Chloe. You still have opportunities. You have _time_,” he insisted. She was a decade his junior. This was supposed to be the prime of her life. “You shouldn’t be wasting it here, taking care of a crippled old cantankerous ex-hunter who can’t even get it up,” he growled, angry at himself. Allowing her to do so was one of his worst crimes, and that bar was high.

“And what would you do if I left?” asked Chloe. She was angry with him, but her eyes fell, seemingly involuntarily, to the gun in his lap, and the sight unsettled her. She looked away.

He hadn’t meant for her to catch his moment of weakness. He should never have touched the thing when there was any possibility of her walking in on him, but whiskey had marred his judgement.

“I’m not holding that over you,” he told her, voice wavering. “I don’t want that to be the reason why you stay.”

“Dean,” she huffed, offended at the insinuation, exasperated by his stubbornness, “that has never been why-”

“I’m no good for you!” Dean barked. Pain had spent all his patience and Jack Daniels had robbed him of what little tact he possessed, and he _needed _her to understand. “I’m no good to anyone. I had one purpose, alright? I had one reason for being, and I was good at it, until I wasn’t, and now..._there’s no point to me anymore_.”

Dean had tried to make peace with his new reality. He was no stranger to pain. He’d felt far worse than what plagued him on a day to day basis. It was the unending nature of it that he couldn’t adjust to, the perpetual fear of doing something to unintentionally make it worse. His pain was fucking insidious. It seemed to eat away at the very foundation of who he was. He felt a coward. He felt a failure. What good was a drug-addled, wheelchair-bound Dean Winchester? He’d taken down demons and angels and _gods_, for fuck’s sake! Now, he could be foiled by a goddamn house cat; of course he hadn’t stood a chance against the cougar. Everything he’d been--his entire concept of self--had been undone by his disability, and not only was he not sure who he could be now, he wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.

“I was never supposed to grow old. I sure as hell wasn’t supposed to do it in this goddamned chair. I’m not supposed to be taken care of by anybody else. You’re doing _my _job, and it chafes like hell. And I can’t…”

He didn’t want to say it in so many words, couldn’t bring himself to hurt her so directly. Chloe tried her best to ease his existence and he couldn’t bear it if she thought she’d failed him.

“_You _shouldn’t have to live like this.”

“Dean-”

“No. Listen to me,” he said, cutting off her objection to add firmly, “You should be with a man who can take care of you. You want a cottage in the woods? Fine. You deserve a man who can _protect _you. Who can at least milk the goddamned goat. Who can chop the firewood, who-”

“Dean Winchester, you listen to me, goddamn it!” Chloe was pissed. She never swore, and his shock allowed her to get a word in edgewise. “I’m not with you because of what you can do for me. I’m with you because I want to share a life with you, because we love each other.”

Dean looked at her for a long while, wondering if he dared say what he was thinking.

“How do you know?”

That brought her up short, and she gave Dean a questioning, uncertain look.

“How do you know I don’t just love you because you love me?” Dean went on, almost unwillingly, as terrified by what he was saying as she was wounded by it. “Because I don’t have any other options? Because you take care of me?” It seemed he’d opened pandora’s box, and his insecurities were voicing themselves before he could stop them. “How do_ I_ even know if I feel anything besides gratitude and dependency?”

“Dean…”

“I can’t even keep it straight in my own head anymore,” he confessed, frustrated with the tears forming in his eyes, “how much is love and how much is guilt and shame. Not enough,” he whispered, as they spilled. “I’m not enough.”

Chloe’s visible irritation vanished, replaced by concern, and she reached out with her one good arm, drawing Dean’s head to her chest where she shushed him.

Dean succumbed to the urge to press his face against her and let himself be petted. “I’m selfish, Chloe,” he wept to her. “I’m wrong. I feel a little more like a bastard every time you tell me you love me. Because I should never have let you,” he apologized, even as he clung to her.

“You don’t get to make that decision for me,” she chided softly.

_“The hell I don’t,_” said Dean, drawing back to look up at her. “And if I loved you, if I _really _loved you, I would have. I’d have shut this all down before it got started. But I fuckin needed...I was so…” He couldn’t articulate the weakness that had led him to drag her down with him. “It feels _unkind _to let you love me,” he said instead.

“Dean,” said Chloe, shaking her head at him, “the only unkindness you do is to yourself when you think this way.”

“How else am I supposed to think? What if I get worse?” he argued. “What if my legs fail me completely? What, am I going to let you wrestle me into the shower? Let you wipe my ass? Even if you _could _do those things now that I’m practically cosplaying Jabba the Lumberjack, you didn’t sign up for that shit.”

Chloe took a deep breath, then his hand in hers. “We’d figure it out,” she told him resolutely. “Y’know, we’d move back to the bunker so Sam can help.”

Dean was shaking his head before she had even finished suggesting it. He didn’t want to impose on Sam, either. He felt more and more with each passing second that the best thing he could do for the ones he loved was to take himself off their hands.

_“Dean_. It’s going to be okay,” Chloe stressed, smiling at him. She was always the optimistic one. Dean’s optimism had died at least a decade ago. He knew better. You couldn’t live a life like his and hold on to much hope. At least, no more than you could wrestle from the world with your own hands, and his hadn’t been capable of much for years now.

Chloe could always read him. She saw him trying to reject her positivity, and she seemed determined not to let him. “You’re spinning hypotheticals but...I _like _our life,” she told him. Dean could hear the sincerity in her voice. “I like our home. I like curling up by the wood stove and watching old Westerns with you. _I like making you pie_. Jody’s close enough to help when we need another hand or an errand run. Sam’s a phone call and a few hours away. We’re not alone, and we’re not helpless. _You’re _not helpless. You are not a bur-”

Dean jerked away from her, knowing what she was going to say and unable to bear to hear the word spoken, even in negation. She winced, and his stomach sank as he realized he’d hurt her. Her fingers had been grasping him too tightly, and when he yanked free of her grasp, he’d pulled her with him, aggravating her injuries.

This. This was what he was afraid of. Hurting her without meaning to. Dean felt caustic. He should never have let her touch him in the first place. And not just here and now. When they’d met, when she’d reached out to him, he should never have taken her hand. It was an injustice to her. And Dean would only continue to hurt her. Would snap at her without cause when he was in pain, would drain her with his needs.

He was doing it now. Chloe had almost died the day before. She wasn’t a hunter. That wasn’t just another Tuesday for her like it was for Sam and Dean. She’d almost died and had spent the night in the hospital, and this is what she had to come home to? A drunken cripple with a gun?

Dean felt he had to get away from her, for her sake. He wheeled back from her and through the open bedroom door.

_“Dean,” _she called after him. It took her a moment to seize her crutch and follow him into the hallway, and Dean could hear her small cry of pain as she attempted to move faster than her injuries would allow. Dean grimaced as if the pain was his own. He was hurting her even as he was trying to avoid it.

_“Don’t follow me!”_ he cried back at her, causing them both to flinch with his harshness. “Please, Princess,” he pleaded, more gently, “not right now. Not this time.”

He passed a bewildered Sam on his way to the backdoor.

“Chloe, what-?” Dean heard him question her behind him.

“Sam, go after him,” she pleaded, and the panic in her voice lanced through Dean, but he forced himself to keep moving. “_Please_. He’s got his gun and I don’t…”

Dean passed through the door before he caught the rest of her sentence, but he paused after he crossed the threshold to look down at the Colt on his lap. He hadn’t even realized he still carried it. It seemed a significant accident, though. The sight of it calmed him.

A warm day had melted what little of the snow remained at the end of his ramp after the trudging feet of rescue workers had knocked it down to size the day before. The way was clear all the way to where Bandit had met his end. Sam had flattened the drifts between when he had buried him. Dean made for the spot but contemplated the path that led past it, where the trees had held off most of the falling snow so that the ground beneath them was clear of it now.

Sam was out the door and on his metaphorical heels before he made it halfway there.

“Dean,” he called after him, growing frustrated when his brother did not answer. “Dean! Where are you going?”

Dean rolled to a stop when he met snow still pink with Bandit’s blood. Dean hadn’t allowed himself to mourn for him yet. Sam had tried to clear it, he could tell, but it still showed.

Sam trotted to a stop behind him and then stepped around his chair and into Dean’s path with a wary expression, his eyes darting between Dean’s face and the gun in his lap.

“Dean?”

Dean was still drunk, but not enough to mask his pain anymore, just enough to muddy his thoughts. The ache in his hips taunted him, vying for his attention. He looked up at his brother with a wretched expression. By rights, Sam should lay into him now for having upset Chloe, for tearing off onto terrain his chair might not handle, leaving Sam to clean up the spill again. They were all exhausted and he was making everything worse, but he had had to escape. He’d needed to break free of that room and the mess he’d made in it. He needed to breathe fresh air, however icy. It wasn’t clearing his head, though, only making his lungs burn.

Dean hung his head and looked mournfully down at the pink tinged slurry beneath his wheels. He missed his old friend, and he envied Bandit his heroic end.

“Why couldn’t you have just let the cat take me, Sam?”

For a moment, he thought Sam might take a swing at him, but he appeared to master the impulse, straightening and huffing out a bitter breath that plumed white in the air.

“Really, Dean? What, did you think you were just going to roll out here and finish what the cougar started? That we were just going to hang back in the house and _let _you?”

Sam had a right to his anger, but Dean could no longer ignore his own. He’d tried to drown it in guilt, but Sam’s condescension didn’t leave Dean with much of that at the moment. In a fit, he snatched up the Colt in his lap, only just resisting the urge to bring it to his temple. “That wasn’t what I’d had in mind, but it’s starting to sound like a pretty damned good idea!”

He and Sam glared at each other. The snowbound silence of the day before was replaced by the restless reawakening of the woods around them. Limbs popped and crackled as they shed melting snow or else snapped under the weight of it, sounding like gunshots echoing in the distance. The gun in Dean’s hand felt eager to return their call.

“How many times have we been here, Dean?” asked Sam, his voice fragile, subdued by a mixture of barely restrained emotions. He seemed to refuse to acknowledge the gun in his brother's hand. “How many times was I _gone_, and you dragged me back?”

The comment soured Dean’s expression further. “Yeah, and how _pissed _were you about it every fucking time?” he bellowed back, despite that he understood it now; both that Sam could want it and how greedy Dean had been to deny him.

“But you were right to do it,” Sam argued, “and I always saw that eventually.”

“Yeah, well, maybe we were both wrong,” Dean muttered.

Sam blasted out a sigh and ran a hand through his hair. “Listen, I know what happened yesterday was hard on you. I know today’s been worse than it has been in a long time. But tomorrow _will _be better,” said Sam, softening, and Dean was tempted to cave beneath the pressure of his pleading stare. It had always been one of his weaknesses.

“You think you know what I’m going through, Sam, but you don’t,” Dean told him with a shake of his head. “Try to imagine what it would have been like if Cas had never scraped Satan out of your head. If he’d just turned down the volume. Imagine if he’d been screaming at you for _four fucking years_, and maybe you’d have some inkling of what I’m living right now.”

Sam didn’t bother to acknowledge the comment. “Dean, I care about you too much to let you do this,” was all he said, finally glancing at the gun Dean held.

Sam didn’t even know what Dean had been about to do. Dean hadn’t known, he’d only needed fresh air. Sam had just assumed, and the assumption pissed Dean off, no matter how much more seductive the idea was becoming with every word they spoke.

“Goddamn it, I’ll do whatever I damn well please! Because, in case you’ve forgotten, I’m a grown ass man, and I don’t always need you and Chloe to decide amongst yourselves what I’m allowed to do!”

“Do you even hear yourself?” Sam scowled, shaking his head at him. “Do you know how...how goddamn _selfish _you sound?”

Dean was practically shaking with indignation. Had Sam started to say ungrateful? Did Dean not express his gratitude often enough? Did they not see that him imposing as little and as seldom as possible was an expression of his gratitude? Did he have to voice it every time he addressed them, remind them every hour how thankful he was for their help? How much further could he lower himself? Did he have to literally prostrate himself at their feet? They’d just have to help him back up if he did, and then he’d have to thank them for that, too.

Dean met Sam’s eyes, his voice climbing with barely banked fury. “No, you’re the selfish one! _Demanding _that I keep going just to save you from living without me,” said Dean, swinging the gun in Sam’s direction but only as punctuation. Sam didn’t bat an eye, he only clenched his jaw. “You’re saying that _your _pain is more important than mine, that I should _prioritize _yours over mine, when_ all I want_ is to fucking _rest_,” he keened. The ache in his hips and back spiked then as if responding to some summons, fueling Dean’s discontent and his temper. “And yeah, you’ve hurt, you’re hurting now, but you can _do _things, Sam! You can make the fight worth it. You can compensate. That was taken from me!” said Dean, tapping his chest with the barrel of the Colt and making Sam flinch for the first time. “_What am I fighting for now, huh?_ How can you claim to love me, and in the same breath, _insist _that I continue to suffer?”

Dean hadn’t had an outburst like that since the days immediately after his accident. He had since made himself as small and unimposing as possible, not wanting to add to the physical burden of caring for him by causing them emotional toil as well, but this had been building for a while.

Sam crossed his arms, his jaw twitching angrily. He seemed tensely aware of the gun in Dean’s hand but trying not to focus on it. He was probably thinking of ways to disarm him. Dean grasped its grip even tighter.

“Chloe,” Sam said finally, quietly.

Dean barely heard him. His tantrum had burned through his whiskey buzz and his back shrieked at him. “What _about _Chloe?” spat Dean, fighting the sudden urge to vomit.

“She’s what you’re fighting for,” Sam huffed, oblivious to his brother’s current struggle. Dean was fast running out of patience for this argument.

“She’s why I need to give up!”

Sam was taken aback by that. His arms fell to his sides and his face twisted into a grimace of confusion and affront. Dean swallowed back his sickness to elaborate.

“Cos if I don’t...I’m going to kill her, Sam,” he said, his voice dropping under the weight of his grief at the confession. It sat heavy on his chest, and Dean drew a stuttering breath. “I am going to wear her down, going to wear her out. She ages two years for every one she’s with me.”

Dean had watched as new carelines were born on Chloe’s face, as stress clawed marks at the corners of her eyes and between her brow, and he knew in his heart it was the burden of caring for him that stooped her shoulders more and more each year.

“_Fuck_,” he spat, lousy with guilt, “Yes, we love each other. I love her so damn much, I almost can’t stand it sometimes. But I’m _miserable_. I make _her _miserable. And maybe love just ain’t enough. I am _so _tired, Sam. And I know she has to be, too. Aren’t _you_?” he asked, sincerely, throwing a look up at his brother, daring him to be honest--with the both of them. “Aren’t you tired of watching me rot? Tired of dragging your ass five hours north every other week just to pick mine up off the floor? Just to see me fucking writhe, to hear me fuckin’ moan?”

Dean was trembling. He was unaware he had been crying until he felt a chilly tear land on the hand in his lap. His eyes fell to it as if for confirmation of the phenomenon, and he saw his white knuckled grip around the gun he held, remembered the pain and horror on Chloe’s face when she had walked in to find him with it.

“Dean…”

With a shudder Dean let the gun fall from his grasp, hanging his head to bury his face in his hands and weep, “It’s all shit, Sammy. I try to hold onto the good, but all the good gets spoiled. It’s...it’s so fuckin’ _hard_. I’ve been here too many times, and I’m just...I’m so tired.”

Dean cried like he hadn’t cried in years. He hated doing so in front of his brother, but it wasn’t a matter of choice at that point. He didn’t want to die, he just didn’t want to live like that anymore, didn’t want them to have to, either. The absence of any other options frustrated him to tears.

Dean didn’t look up when he heard Sam’s steps carrying him closer, and he didn’t resist when he felt Sam’s hands seize his shoulders to draw him into an almost desperate embrace.

“We’ll find a way to make it easier, okay?” came Sam’s choked voice in Dean’s ear. “We’ll get you on some different meds. Talk to some new doctors. Maybe another surgery…”

Dean couldn’t bear to even think about yet another procedure, another fragile but doomed hope dying in the recovery when nothing was made better after all, and all the pain and trouble had been for nothing. Dean shook his head and tried to pull away but Sam wouldn’t let him.

“Dean, _we’ll figure it out_,” he insisted. “We’ll make it through, like we always have, _together_. Cos I’m not._ I’m not tired_, Dean. And I doubt Chloe is, either. And we’re here for you,” Sam stressed. “If you can’t find strength of your own, take some of ours. That’s how this works. That’s what family is for.”

“I don’t like being a burden, Sammy,” Dean hiccuped miserably between sobs.

“Dean, you are not a burden,” said Sam, sounding appalled at the insinuation, as if just saying the word was distasteful. He pulled back to look Dean in the eyes, his hand coming up to cradle Dean’s jaw to ensure the contact. Sam’s were as wet and red as Dean’s must be. “You’re my brother. And taking care of you is never a hardship. You’ve taken care of me all of our lives, it’s just my turn to return the favor. And I’m glad to do it, alright?”

Sam’s expression was so desperately adamant, so persuasive, that Dean felt his resistance crumble beneath it. His tears slowed and he let himself breathe, releasing a little more tension, a little more pain, with each puffed exhale. Eventually, the only weight on his shoulders was his brother’s reassuring grip, and he nodded.

It was a small gesture, but it seemed to give Sam permission to breathe, too. He sucked in a relieved breath and returned Dean’s nod with a grateful squeeze before rising to his feet and stepping behind Dean’s chair to wheel him back to the house.

Chloe was on the porch, clutching her shawl beneath her chin as if it were the only thing anchoring her to earth, and Dean was flushed with fresh guilt. He should have known she’d be there. He wondered how much she had heard.

“Dean?” she whispered when they were near enough, searching his face for confirmation that the storm had passed. She must have read the remorse in his expression because she released her shawl to take up her crutch and shuffle down the ramp to meet them.

“I’m sorry,” said Dean. “Chloe, I’m so, so-”

She silenced him with a shake of her head. “It’s okay, Papa,” she told him, summoning a tearful smile. “Hey, look at me. See? It’s okay. And I’m gonna get you inside where it’s warm,” she said, rubbing his shoulders as she was unable to bend and embrace him, “and we are gonna make you a pie. And Sammy’s gonna go get you a burger,” she said, glancing up at Sam with a nod for his confirmation but not waiting for it, “and...and a whole _case _of beer. And we’re gonna watch a monster movie together, okay?”

Her voice and touch were anxious and desperate. He’d frightened her. Dean would need to be careful with his words for the next few days, make a point to be gentle with and indulge her. All these suggestions would help Chloe more than him. Though he certainly wouldn’t be letting her try to make pie on crutches, he’d damn sure let her feed him fries and beer on the couch if that’s what she wanted to do.

“Dean. Listen, sugar,” she said more evenly, mistaking his silence as reluctance. “I know it’s not that simple. I know it’s not that easy. But it’s a start, right? It’s a first step. It’s what we can do_ right now_.”

Dean looked up at her hopeful face and felt a measure of peace settle over him. His guilt was tired, and he decided to allow her her devotion. The scales tipped, and his gratitude outweighed his shame. It didn’t matter to him what they did, so long as they did it together.

“Okay,” he nodded, squeezing her hand. And not just to placate her. If she and Sam were determined to try, then so was he.

“Okay?” she repeated as if afraid she’d misheard him. He gave a small but reassuring smile, and her answering one was like the sun emerging from behind clouds. “Okay,” she sniffed with a determined nod, turning to lead the way back into the house.

* * *

**Three Months Later**

“Hey, Dean, pass me that drill?” asked Sam from the ladder where he was holding a wooden slat in place on the goat enclosure he was building. It was more of a small barn, really, joined at the hip with Chloe’s chicken coop, with a covered walkway planned from it to the house. It was ambitious, but then, they were all feeling a bit more optimistic lately.

Dean brushed the dirt off his hands from the new planter box he’d been filling and wheeled back to fetch the requested tool, wincing at the high pitched beep that sounded when he did so. He wasn’t used to his new motorized chair yet, but it was a damned sight less exhausting than the manual one had been, which left him more energy to actually garden. Dean handed the electric drill up to his brother just as Chloe stepped out of the back door, wagging a couple of cold beers at her boys.

“Break time, you two.”

The prohibition on alcohol had been tentatively lifted in light of Dean’s new herbal prescription, which Dean had just been prepping a new bed to grow for himself. Historically, he was not a fan of weed, but he'd also been unaware how complex and varied a plant cannabis could be. Apparently there was more to it than the reggie he’d sampled as a teenager. There were dozens of different strains, and each one affected a person in a different way. After a bit of experimentation, they had found one that helped his pain as efficiently as whiskey but without the stupor of opioids. It did quite a bit to elevate his mood, as well.

Sam finished tightening his screw and then climbed down from the ladder to accept the bottle Chloe held out to him with a grateful nod. They all took a moment to sip their drinks and appreciate the progress that had been made on the structure in front of them so far. It was still largely skeletal, but Dean had already made a raised milking platform for when it was finished, high enough to allow him to help in the chore when then time came.

“You ready?” Chloe asked Sam who nodded and set down his beer.

Dean looked from one to the other, unsure what was going on. He was even more confused when Sam ducked into the house and returned carrying Chloe’s alarm clock. Sam balanced it on the corner of Dean’s new garden bed before trotting back over to them.

“What…?” Dean began, when Chloe reached behind her to pull Dean’s gun from the back of her waistband.

“Have at it, Papa,” she winked, polishing off her beer and setting the empty bottle aside to give him her full attention.

Dean took it from her hesitantly. He hadn’t seen the Colt since the day Chloe came home from the hospital. He’d given it to her afterward for safekeeping, figuring it would calm her anxiety. In the end, she hadn’t exactly hidden it from him, just stored it in the drawer of the nightstand instead of on top of it so that it was accessible if he needed it but not staring him constantly in the face, and that had been enough for both of them. It spoke of trust on both their parts. Dean turned the thing over in his hands.

“And I’m supposed to do what with this, exactly?”

“Send the clicky box to Hell where it belongs,” said Chloe solemnly. It had been hard to explain his request to replace the thing, but it seemed Chloe had understood better than he had thought. He hadn’t seen it since that fateful day, either.

“Babe,” Dean objected, equal parts tempted and uncomfortable, “I thought you said that was your Nana’s?”

Chloe shrugged and leaned down to drape her arms around him from behind. “Between you and me, Nana was kind of a bitch. Plus, she’s dead, and I like you better anyways,” she explained, giving him a peck on the cheek before rising out of his way.

Dean cocked a brow at Sam who was clearly in on this. His brother nodded and waved a hand in the clock’s direction.

“Go on. Kill your monster.”

There was no mockery or judgement in the invitation, and Dean looked back down at the gun in his hand. He allowed himself to enjoy its weight and shape. He didn’t expect to feel much better afterward, but he appreciated the gesture.

Once he made up his mind, he checked the chamber and turned off the safety with a smooth efficiency born of years of repetition, then he lined the alarm up in his sights. Dean brought to mind the hours and hours of infernal ticking he’d endured. He knew it wasn’t the clock that was evil, but the evil inside of him had used it as a mouthpiece, and Dean decided he would put a bullet straight between the eyes of the only face he had for that demon. With a determined set of his jaw, Dean squeezed the trigger.

The crack of the shot was almost simultaneous with the shatter and spray of plastic and metal. He’d be picking it out of the planter’s soil for a while, he figured, but he didn’t much mind. Seeing the mangled remains of his target was more satisfying than he’d anticipated it would be.

Before the shrapnel even had a chance to finish settling, Chloe gave a whoop beside him, throwing her hands up in celebration, and Sam gave him a firm clap on the shoulder.

“Now, who wants pie?” asked Chloe excitedly, not waiting for their response before bouncing back up the ramp toward the kitchen. Sam and Dean grinned at each other. She’d done a lot of bouncing since ridding herself of her crutch.

Without so much as a glance behind him at the ruined alarm clock, Dean followed Chloe inside where the sweet scent of warm apples and cinnamon waited.

**Author's Note:**

> Glob bless my betas. Besides creating a beautiful banner for it, @thoughtslikeaminefield forced me to take a hard, critical look at this fic. @princessmisery666 was with me every step of the way and helped develop the plot, and she provided more than a line or two to break loose my creative blockage. As did @monicawoe. She and @ladylilithprime were there with valuable insights and sanity-reinforcing encouragement. @risingphoenix761 was a wonderful cheerleader, as well. THANK YOU ALL. 
> 
> [Come yell at me on tumblr.](https://slytherkins.tumblr.com/)


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